What to do about the Samsung Galaxy A7 that’s sluggish or running so slow [Troubleshooting Guide]

There will come a time that your smartphone starts to run slow and sluggish. In fact, we’ve already received several complaints from our readers complaining about this specific issue involving the Samsung Galaxy A7. This is a mid-level phone and it actually has a pretty impressive hardware compared to its competitors. Needless to say, it’s fast and considering its firmware is already updated, you can seldom feel the lags and/or freezes.

In this post however, I will tackle the performance issue wherein the phone starts to run very slow or sluggish. While it’s basically not a complicated problem, it’s very annoying because you’ll have to wait for your phone to finish a task that it could do in a few seconds before. For a phone that’s advertised to run fast and buttery smooth, it’s very frustrating use a unit the basically does the opposite. If you’re one of the owners of this phone and are currently bugged by a similar problem, continue reading as you may find this post helpful.

Now, before we proceed, if you are looking for a solution to a different problem, make sure you visit our A7 troubleshooting page for we have already addressed the most common issues with this device. Browse through the page to find similar issues and use the solutions we suggested. If you still need our help after that, contact us by completing our questionnaire.

Troubleshooting a slow and sluggish Galaxy A7

The purpose of this troubleshooting guide is for us to determine why a phone with pretty decent specs started to run annoyingly slow and sluggish. We will consider every possibility and rule them out one-by-one until we can easily determine what the problem is all about and what causes it so that we can try to formulate a solution that might fix it for good. Try to go through the procedures below…

Run your Galaxy A7 in safe mode and observe

One of the possibilities why a phone runs slow is due to apps running in the background. Most of the apps that cause problems are third-party or those you downloaded and installed. The reason why we need to run your phone in safe mode is for us to isolate the problem. Doing so will give us a hint as to what the culprit really is. When in safe mode, all third-party apps and services are temporarily disabled. Here’s how you do that…

  1. Turn the device off.
  2. Press and hold the Power key past the model name screen.
  3. When “SAMSUNG” appears on the screen, release the Power key.
  4. Immediately after releasing the Power key, press and hold the Volume down key.
  5. Continue to hold the Volume down key until the device finishes restarting.
  6. Safe mode will display in the bottom left corner of the screen.
  7. Release the Volume down key when you see Safe Mode.

If your phone performs really well when in this mode, then it’s confirmed that one or some of the apps you installed is causing the problem. You need to find that app and uninstall it. You may have to uninstall more than one app and reboot your phone countless times to fix this problem.

Here’s how you uninstall an app from your A7…

  1. From the Home screen, tap the Apps tray.
  2. Tap Settings > Apps.
  3. Tap the desired application in the default list or tap 3 dots icon > Show system apps to display preinstalled apps.
  4. Tap the desired application.
  5. Tap Uninstall.
  6. Tap Uninstall again to confirm.

RELATED POSTS:

Reset all settings

If your phone still feels laggy or sluggish even when in safe mode, the next thing you should do is try to bring the phone back to its default settings. There’s a chance that this problem is due to some incorrect settings and we don’t have a clue where to look. So, the best thing you can do right now is to reset all settings so that the phone will be brought back to its out-of-the-box configuration. But the good thing about this method is that you won’t lose a single app, file or data; they will remain untouched even if all settings are reset.

  1. From a Home screen, swipe up or down from the center of the display to access the apps screen.
  2. Navigate: Settings Settings icon > Backup and reset.
  3. From the Reset section, tap Reset settings.
  4. Review the info then tap RESET SETTINGS.
  5. If presented, enter the current PIN, password, or pattern.
  6. To confirm, review the info then tap RESET SETTINGS.

Continue your observation after doing is. If the problem still persists, try the next procedure.

Wipe cache partition

Another possibility that we need to rule out is the fact that corrupt system caches may also cause the phone to slow down and perform poorly. System caches are corruptible in nature and such corruption may occur without apparent reason or cause. It’s therefore advisable to delete the caches created by the firmware from time to time so that they will be replaced with new ones. You don’t have access to single cache so what you need to do is delete all of them at once by wiping off the partition where they’re stored. Here’s how you do that…

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe cache partition”.
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key to highlight “yes” and press the Power key to select.
  7. When the wipe cache partition is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  8. Press the Power key to restart the device.

Perform the Master Reset

If wiping the cache partition doesn’t yield any favorable results, the next thing you should do is the master reset. As far as performance issues are concerned, a reset will be able to fix them all for as long as the firmware hasn’t been modified in any way. However, you will have to go through the hassle of backing up all your files and data and I know that isn’t always easy especially if you have a slow phone. However, you seem to have ran out of options now so take time backing up your important files and data. After which, disable the Factory Reset Protection by removing your Google account from your phone so that you won’t be locked out after the reset. Once everything is set and ready, follow these steps to reset your device:

  1. Turn off the device.
  2. Press and hold the Volume Up key and the Home key, then press and hold the Power key.
  3. When the Android logo displays, release all keys (‘Installing system update’ will show for about 30 – 60 seconds, then ‘No command’ before showing the Android system recovery menu options).
  4. Press the Volume down key several times to highlight “wipe data / factory reset.
  5. Press Power button to select.
  6. Press the Volume down key until ‘Yes — delete all user data’ is highlighted.
  7. Press Power button to select and start the master reset.
  8. When the master reset is complete, “Reboot system now” is highlighted.
  9. Press the Power key to restart the device.

I hope that this troubleshooting guide can help you fix the problem with your phone. If you still need our help, then feel free to contact us and we’ll help you find a solution.

Posts you may also like to read:

TheDroidGuy Mailbag

🛠️If you have questions, check our Help section for details on how to submit your questions.💡


Posts You Might Like

Leave a Comment